Fire and Screams
by Devgil
Summary: The screams can't leave. Not mine. Not my friend's. Not those of the innocents lost to horror every day. But they'll be free soon. And the torturers won't have time to scream. This fire burns too quickly for that. Vastly AU post-apocalyptic bittersweet.


**AN:** The world that this story is based off of is not mine. Neither are the characters. Well, not the names and descriptions. The personalities are all mine.

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><p>She screamed again.<p>

Liquid agony scorched through her, her nerves twisting and shrieking. Her body rose, stretching high against her restraints, her back arching higher, higher, bones creaking as magically enforced pain pushed her body towards merciful death. Her bones grated inside of her as they approached their breaking point and the pain cut off abruptly. She slumped back onto the slab of stone she was chained to, her entire body protesting as it bounced back onto the hard granite.

"Well. That was certainly an interesting experiment, wasn't it?" A softly cold voice whispered from the dark, tone full to the brim with dark pleasure. Hermione moaned as the after-shocks of the curse rippled through her, drawing in air in great panting gasps. She winced slightly as she wet her lips, the soft texture of her tongue still enough to pain her scarred lips. She tasted blood as she withdrew her tongue, the taste familiar after all this time...how long _had _it been? "Don't you have a reply for me? After all, you _are_ the one who's always espoused experimental method." The voice taunted and she grit her teeth in a futile attempt to ignore the pain. It would come back in the end.

"Fuck. Y-" Her second word cut off into a wordless howl. Shadows clung at her vision, blood filling her mouth as her teeth drove through her bottom lip once more. But she didn't pass out. He wasn't going to be that easy to manipulate this time and the pain lifted after a few more seconds.

"I asked for an answer, mudblood. Not obscenities that help no one." The voice continued, all softness gone. "Or are you useless to me now?"

"N...no." Hermione grated out, her voice a bare whisper of its original self. "It was...it was an _inspired_ experiment. Although perhaps slightly flawed in the...execution."

"Really?" The voice replied, intrigued. "How so?" Hermione swallowed hard.

"There...there were no other test subjects." The voice laughed harshly.

"Oh, I'm afraid there _were_." It turned soft for a moment. "Close your eyes please, I wouldn't want you blinded." She obeyed, closing her eyes. Light flared into being above her, shining through her eyelids. "And open them." She felt the slab she was chained to being to tilt as her salt encrusted eyelids – a result of far too many tears – lifted. "See, I had other test subjects." The voice laughed again as her eyes widened in sudden horror.

She couldn't scream, she couldn't, she couldn't, she _**couldn't!**_ An agonised whimper dropped from her lips as she saw who Tom Riddle had obtained to act as his other 'test subjects'. But that was nothing compared to what he had done to them. Most were alive, albeit slightly twisted. But a great, gaping hole shattered through her heart as she recognised the vaporous blonde haired form of Luna snapped into two clearly separated pieces like a twig. Blood and water dripped down the shattered spine of the young girl. And then there were the other dead. Some she knew, some she didn't. But the spine of each and every one of them was in two pieces. She didn't cry. She couldn't. Not because of the possible consequences either. She was simply unable to cry anymore. And she hated Riddle for that. Over everything else; his genocide of Muggles, the sick experiments that he used her to create every time he had an 'interesting idea'. He had taken her compassion from her, ripped it away over months of painstaking 'experimentation'. She hated that word too. She, who had loved science. She _hated_ that word now.

"I thought you'd like that, mudblood." His cold amusement washed through her and she was sullied all over again by simply being in its presence. "Then again, now that they've been used, I'm not sure I need them anymore. I can always find more savages to experiment on."

Her lips moved, but no sound escaped. She knew the consequences of speaking out of turn and she couldn't survive much more of it. "Ah, I see you would like them to live." There was a short pause. "I guess I could think about it. But we're done for now. Sweet dreams." Everything went black.

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><p>The universe has been called many things, but the one most telling to this explanation is it being analogous to a watch. Imagine, the entire universe, one vast, intricate piece of machinery, each part relying on all the others to maintain its majestic harmony. But if the universe is a watch, then it has one crucial error. God is no longer the only watchmaker afoot.<p>

It had travelled far these past years, coasting through the void on the propulsion of a single word spoken far from its original position. It was now far further into its system then it ever should have been, slowly sliding into the correct position after weeks of delicate effort. But it was there now and a soft nudge – in relative terms – twisted it onto a new trajectory. Then that word, that same word that had started its journey, echoed out across the void and it started to accelerate again. The sudden acceleration took its structure by surprise and great clouds of stone fragmented into dust, spraying out behind it in a trail as it moved in on its target and began to compress.

There were a few, a very few, who still had the knowledge to understand what was happening. But they did not have the tools. The great telescopes of Earth had been destroyed in Voldemort's rise, all but the single one that had been placed in orbit and it was isolated. No member of the resistance was stupid enough to attempt to contact the satellites. Tracking the signature of technology might be difficult with magic, but picking up a transmission that powerful would be child's play for the experts the Dark Lord now commanded.

So they didn't know. And that, in itself, saved them. If they _had_ known, then he might have been able to pry it from one of those he captured daily. And even with it this close, magic might have been able to stop what magic had started. Harry shook his head, looking up and waited for the streak of fire that would signal the beginning of the end. He was going to die tonight. He knew that. But at least he would end well. And maybe, just _maybe_ his sacrifice would give humanity new hope. A streak of light flared into being at the edge of the atmosphere and he smiled the carefree smile of one who knows he is about to die.

"Fawkes?" He asked the empty air and the red and gold phoenix burst into being beside him, crooning softly as he swept round to face him. He nodded. "It's time." Fawkes crooned again, this time sadly, and alighted on Harry's shoulder. Harry shook his head. "Please don't Fawkes. It's already started. Let's go." The luminescent bird gave a sharp cry and then the two vanished in a pillar of flame.

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><p>"Hermione?" Hermione jerked awake at the soft whisper of her name, the difference in tone and pitch pulling her instantly out of self-protective sleep. Her eyes widened.<p>

"Harry?" She whisper-screamed.

"Yes." He said softly. "I am so sorry. For everything." She felt the chains on her loosen.

"No, don't! The chains are al-" she was cut off by the shriek of a warding siren, "-armed."

"I know." Harry replied, before turning to Fawkes. "Get all who can survive out, then get yourself to safety." Fawkes gave another sharp cry, this one so sad it almost broke Hermione's shattered heart, and then vanished in a silent fireball. Harry waved his wand over the chains around Hermione and the snapped open, sending her stumbling into his arms.

"I...I...how did you know..." Hermione whispered as the siren snapped off. They didn't have much time.

"I know you." Harry replied, as if that said it all. And in a way it did. "Here, drink this." He handed her a vial which she instantly downed, ignoring the pain as the acidic substance cleansed the cuts in her mouth. More pain jolted through her as it dropped down through her windpipe but she ignored it. And then she was steady on her feet. Harry handed her wand. "You remember?"

"Of course." She replied, her voice returned to her. And now it was calm, even as a cloaked figure appeared before them with a faint pop.

"And what do we have here." Voldemort's expression twisted with almost reptilian satisfaction. "I come to restrain my favourite pet and I find that I have caught my last true enemy. My, this _is_ a good day." Harry chuckled. He chuckled. And Voldemort's eyes flared.

Bolts of red flame slashed from his wand as he moved forward, but the two opposing him had been expecting it. Their own wands moved in tandem and similar bolts of shimmering brown and green swatted the red out of the air.

"What's that matter Tom, gotten rusty in your old age?" Harry taunted. Voldemort blinked once and then laughed.

"Oh, very _good_. But I doubt you can fight all of my followers as well as me!" He said viciously, jabbing his wand down on his Dark Mark. The air filled with the sound of Apparition and Hermione looked at Harry.

"Now?" She asked, her tone jittering slightly.

"Now." He responded and the two raised their wands skyward.

"_Adveho_!" The two cried as one.

For a very short moment nothing happened. The massed, black cloaked forces of Lord Voldemort paused, taken aback by an incantation that seemed to do nothing. Then their Lord gave a cackle.

"You see! The _great_ Harry Potter, and nothing he and his great _prodigy_ of a friend does wor-" The air shook. A wave of pressure lashed down across those within the chamber, staggering them. But that wasn't the reason the robed masses stopped. They looked around, trying to work out what had happened. And then the air – not the ground, the _air_ – shook again and Harry and Hermione grinned madly.

"Just because a spell has no immediate effect doesn't mean it failed." Harry replied, his voice amiable and far too serene. "Goodbye Tom." He nodded to Hermione.

"_Adveho!_" The two yelled as one and the Death Eaters scattered as their wands came down into matched blurs, pointing directly at Voldemort."_**Sepelio!**_"

Their wands flashed into flame and their bodies followed, burning up together in a pyre of explosive fire. Voldemort's first laugh died on his lips as he felt his wards crumble under the oncoming storm of hypervelocity rock. He sucked in breath on mindless instinct, about to scream. Then he and all his allies were wiped out of existence by a thousand tonnes of scattered, molten stone arriving at approximately 61 miles per second. It was far too intense to call a simple explosion.

The fireball exploded upwards in a pillar of white flame. Those outside of the blast radius – almost all of whom survived due to the wards containing the explosion – never looked at the sun the same way again. And Voldemort's capital simply ceased to be. The lance of flame reached up far into the atmosphere, visible to people almost a thousand miles away and the resistance groups took that as their cue. Humanity rose up and whilst thousands died, the results of The Impact had forever broken the backs of their oppressors. Science triumphed in the end. Magic...magic lost.

And thus ended the reign of Tom Riddle. May he burn in eternity for what he took from us.

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><p><strong>AN:<strong> And here we have another in the Epitaph strand. Not in the same plotline – at least I don't _think_ it's in the same plotline, although I could be wrong – but it came into my mind around midnight. And then wouldn't leave me alone. It's a bit...broken I'll admit, but that's the reason it's rated so high.

Thanks go to ShinjuKuroba for betaing. And even more go to you for reading this. This is my first real feel into this sort of writing and I'd really appreciate critique. Thank you.

Wind to thy wings


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